Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Country Office has launched the first ever Inclusivity Hackathon in Azerbaijan.

Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva attended the event.

Hackathon draws innovative solutions to support people with varying abilities, bringing together a hundred people together in Baku.

In his speech, UNDP Resident Representative for Azerbaijan Alessandro Fracassetti stressed that Azerbaijan holds the first ever Hackathon. He expressed his gratitude to Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva for her support to projects aimed at promoting inclusivity.

Then Leyla Aliyeva pressed the button symbolizing the launch of the Hackathon.

The main purpose of the 48-hour non-stop event was to bring together motivated representatives of the civil society, people with disabilities (PwD), and young civic and technology enthusiasts where they got exposed to challenges of PwD experience in Azerbaijan, came up with ideas and open source code solutions to tackle these challenges (e.g. apps, websites, e-products) as well as "acquired the fire" from a group of mentors to further their ideas into a workable prototypes to improve lives of PwDs.

Experienced mentors supported the participating teams and assisted them in developing best possible solutions.

By the end of the three-day intensive program, the jury, consisting of national and international experts in the field of innovation, inclusivity and technology reviewed individual team profiles and gave their final decision on the winning idea.

The best idea received a grant award of 5,000 manats ($2,932) and access to professional mentorship guidance for the period of three months following the award.